Authentic assessment

Authentic assessments are those which have relevance outside of the classroom. It is not just the type of task that makes an assessment authentic, but the type of thinking that is required to fulfil that task.

Authentic assessments are practice-based and have a strong connection to work-integrated learning. Traditional forms of work-integrated learning have focused on internships, placements, and preparations for these. However, authentic assessments may not be singly-focused on one particular workplace, but instead on the types of activities and thinking required for these professional environments. There are a range of questions you can ask yourself to determine if an assessment is authentic or not.

Authentic assessments are often seen in opposition to more traditional forms of assessment and testing, like closed-book exams and essays. While closed-book exams with strict time frames may teach memory and time management skills, a disadvantage of them is that they happen in an artificial learning environment and are not often used in the world beyond university. Similarly, essay-writing is an activity which is foundational to many university subjects, but not usually replicated in the professional world.

While it is true that these types of assessments are not typically considered to be ‘authentic’, they may still be part of a holistic university course that involves historical, conceptual, and professionally-related assessments. Assessments may be within a range of authenticity. Each course may involve a range of assessment types, some of which are wholly authentic, and others which have elements of authenticity. Indeed, one assessment within a larger course may invite a range of modes, dimensions, and opportunities for application to the workplace. Some of these aspects may be applied, and some may rely on other skills which are typically only relevant to the classroom. This means that even closed-book exams and essays can involve authentic aspects. For example, students may be asked to analyse design principles in an interactive gaming exam, or essays may require students to critically analyse a proposed solution or strategy. 

Authentic assessments have many advantages and are essential to UTS’ teaching and learning strategy, learning.futures. The main advantages of authentic assessment for our work here at UTS are:

Is practice-oriented

Is practice-oriented and moves away from ‘what can you remember?’ to ‘what can you do with what you have learned?’ Transferable skills are enhanced as students do not focus purely on technical skills, which can become outdated quickly, but on ways to use these technologies to solve complex problems. Authentic assessments may be completed in teams, or as individual pieces of work with feedback and shared resources from other students. Students may be accessing work from their subject on Canvas, but also through materials from companies, governments, interviews, and each other.

Uses assessment as learning

Uses assessment as learning rather than assessment of learning. This means that assessment questions are usually complex problems, which require high-level thinking and have many ways of being ‘right’. Assessments may even have problems that are ill-defined, wicked, or require different ways of dealing with the issue at hand, and may be approached in many different ways.

Enables multiple feedback points

Involves feedback along the way so assessments align within a feedback loop that supports students to reflect on and improve their work.. Authentic assessments do not usually ask students to choose one correct answer from a list, or give them one-shot to master a task. Instead, feedback/feedforward may be given iteratively, by the tutor, team mates, or the student themselves. Planning, revising, explaining one’s reasoning, and working constructively with feedback take prominence.

Maintains academic integrity

Can help combat cheating through greater reliance on collaboration and planning than memorisation of content. While traditional exams and testing (or what Wiggins calls ‘proxy’ items) rely upon secrecy to ensure their validity, authentic assessments invite planning, revision, renewed definitions of problems, challenges to existing thinking, and about-turns. They invite continual feedback and have many alternative routes to being ‘right’. In this perspective, knowing the task before it is assessed does not invalidate authentic assessment, but may actually make the results of student work more valuable as it enables greater thought and reflection on varying approaches. 

While authentic assessments enable students to practice fundamental skills in a supported environment, there are some drawbacks that must be considered:

Requires more time commitment

There’s a perception that authentic assessments require greater time commitments from both teachers and students. However, there are also reports that students are happy to spend more time on work they consider valuable. If there are concerns about greater marking time demands, you may want to consider using group-work, self-assessment, peer-assessment and the use of online technologies as support. Partnerships between subjects, courses, faculties, universities and industry can enrich authentic assessments as well as decreasing your resource commitments.

Can be difficult to design in ‘pure’ subjects

Authentic assessments may be difficult to use with ‘pure’ subjects, that is, subjects which focus more on theory than the application of this theory in real-world settings. This may be especially true in fields such as mathematics, law and medicine. In these cases, you may consider using a range of assessment and thinking tasks which vary in their degree of authenticity.

Popular types of authentic assessment are: 

1. Writing case notes in Nursing
2. Following a design brief in Architecture 
3. Reporting on a new marketing initiative in Business 
4. Participating in moots in Law
5. reflecting on practice in any discipline is an important part of authentic assessment as this is the predominant way that people learn in the workplace and in their lives.